Get your top brass to respond to them with much earnest head-shaking (“this is hurting us, more than it’s hurting you… but we’re doing it for the children democracy”).

As the big day approaches, up the pace of your coverage – a special on Newsnight (make that two!), prominent slots on all of your news and current affairs programmes, regular briefing for the print media.

Then the day of broadcast…

…rile up the demonstrators, leave the gates open long enough for them to invade your offices, then switch on the 24-hour rolling news coverage…

…fuel speculation over whether the guest-of-honour will make it through the crowds, then smuggle him in through a back entrance (having tipped off the paparazzi so they get good snaps)…

As soon as the programme is over, start milking it for all it’s worth. Get Richard Bacon to ask a BNP councillor how well he thinks his leader’s done. Tell Nicky Campbell to use his phone-in to ask “Was Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time a triumph for democracy?” And, of course, Join the Discussion on Our Blog! (how could you not?).

Now obviously, there were some missed opportunities (why no BNP theme for EastEnders? And surely Radio 3 should have had a Wagner special) – but all in all, a proud day for our public service broadcaster.

Hopefully, in its review of the affair, the BBC Trust (“getting the best out of the BBC for licence payers”) will not look simply at Question Time itself, but will explore the multi-media phenomenon in the round.

How many broadcast hours were dedicated to the event? Website inches? Weeks of work by the BBC’s queens and kings of media hype?

And how good were the results from making the news, rather than just reporting it? What were the ratings/hits/coverage like? How long has the BBC spent on the front pages? Are people talking about its ‘event’ at work?

Global Dashboard explores global risks and international affairs, bringing together authors who work on foreign policy in think tanks, government, academia, and the media. It was set up in 2007 and is edited from the UK by Alex Evans and David Steven. Read more here

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Such great work here by @lewis_goodall. Really robust interviewing but substantive and revealing in the way that John Humphrys style gotcha point scoring never is. Wish there was more of this in our political journalism. twitter.com/inzyrashid/sta…

This is THE key point. Risk is that an incoming Tory PM, elected only by majorities of 313 MPs and 100k elderly hard right members, pushes through a no deal Brexit by Oct 31, reasoning that with that a fait accompli, they’ll then have time to win public over before next GE 😱🤯😥 pic.twitter.com/uIjd32Qlj2